


An Intimate History Of Collecting

by Astarloa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pre-Series, Season/Series 08, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:43:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astarloa/pseuds/Astarloa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay, so. Here's the thing you need to understand: Dean Winchester collects other people's medication.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Intimate History Of Collecting

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by a comment posted by Maypoles at Hoodie_time on LJ: _You know how Dean sometimes has these mystery pills onscreen? It’s my head-canon he takes them from (deceased) victim’s medicine cabinets on cases they’re on. What are they? How many is he taking? Something about how this doesn’t end so well for him._

Okay, so. Here’s the thing you need to understand: Dean Winchester collects other people’s medication.

::::

It’s dark and humid.

The heavy, almost sweet smell of rot lingers in the air, coating the back of Dean’s tongue when he takes a shallow, experimental breath through his mouth. He presses his lips together again and swallows, pushing damp strands of hair away from his face with the back of one arm. New beads of sweat immediately break out across his forehead. 

He slumps against the kitchen counter, knobbly drawer handles digging uncomfortably into his back, and looks around the room. It’s pale and narrow with heavy, exposed, beams that stretch across the ceiling; a dead forest designed by a gardener obsessed with geometry. Moonlight shines through a row of high-set windows only to be swallowed up by the yellowed glow of an electric light bulb. 

Cabinets with frosted glass and irregular lead piping cover three walls. The fourth has been left strangely blank, as if the builders grew bored before it was finished and wandered away. 

Maybe the money ran out and there’s nothing but tins of spaghetti and damp, mould-spotted bread hidden inside one of the cupboards, Dean thinks; the remains of crushed cornflakes and a carton of milk with crusty, white residue coating its rim, two days past sour. 

He gives a mental shrug. There are worse things. 

An oversized refrigerator hums quietly in the corner. If he touched it, would the vibrations travel through his arm and become trapped under his skin, alongside the grinding rattle of the car? 

Dean sighs and scuffs at black and white tiles with the toe of his shoe. The excitement he’d usually feel is back at the motel they checked out of yesterday, wrapped up in cheap, scratchy sheets, fast asleep. 

A block of knives sits on the opposite counter. 

He walks over and pulls out one of the blades. Its plastic handle feels slick between his fingers, lacking the weight and balance to be truly useful. He runs the serrated, stainless steel edge over the ball of his thumb, testing its sharpness, and flinches. Fine dots of red appear on his skin as the knife hits the ground with a clatter.

“For God’s sake, Dean.” John’s voice, irritable and whisky rough, comes from the floor, where he’s crouched over the remains of two ruined bodies whose names used to be Phyillis and Keith Montgomery. 

Well, technically they still are. It’s not the same, though. Dean’s only ten, but he’s not stupid. He knows things, and that’s one of them. 

The man’s skin is shrivelled and brown, like an apple gone bad and mummified by the sun. Fine wisps of hair stubbornly cling to his scalp, waving back and forth – _back and forth, back and forth_ \- in a non-existent breeze. The second body is wearing a stained, floral nightdress, cotton rucked up over what used to be thighs, slipping skin torn and bloodied. 

Mrs Montgomery, Dean guesses. 

Her hand’s stretched towards the man as if trying to touch him, a tarnished ring that might have been gold hanging from the stump of one finger. 

Someone should tell her to stop, that it’s too late for that now.

“Quit screwing around and make yourself useful,” John continues. “Go check on your brother.” 

“But I can help –“

John looks up. “You need to stop with the attitude and do what I tell you. No arguments.” His face is damp and flushed a dull red, eyebrows drawn low over eyes circled with shadows. A small muscle jumps at the corner of his mouth. 

There’s a moment of silence.

Dean feels himself nod, as if connected to strings being pulled from a distance, and then he says, “Yes, sir.”

::::

Dean likes multi-coloured capsules and small, plastic bottles covered in pharmacy labels the best, the kind that rattle when you shake them. Sometimes he’ll pick up an inhaler, but not often.

Paracetamol’s boring. 

There’s nothing special about non-prescription medication. It’s too impersonal, not worth keeping. 

His collection’s nothing fancy to look at, just a series of small, zip locked bags with initials and dates written on the corner in black, permanent marker. AM-19.11.06. DB-8.11.05. MJA-28.02.06. He keeps them inside a plastic shopping bag whose handles are knotted together and stuffs the whole lot inside his duffle, underneath sweat-stained t-shirts and socks.

Some of the drugs are practical – muscle relaxants and painkillers, anti-nausea medication that helps take the edge off a concussion – and others aren’t, not unless Dean develops several rare and potentially fatal conditions simultaneously. 

It doesn’t matter. He steals them anyway.

::::

He walks down a hallway on rubber-soled sneakers, the frayed end of one shoelace dragging behind him. Photographs of too cheerful faces stare down at him from their frames on the wall. They remind Dean of insects, bright smiles spread out like wings, pinned and mounted inside a display case.

He pulls a face. They’re fucking creepy.

The corridor opens out into a large, square room cluttered with side tables and knick-knacks, furniture squeezed between them as an afterthought. Everything’s covered in a fine layer of dust. Curtains hang limply along one wall, obscuring the windows. 

Sam’s sitting on the edge of a high, overstuffed sofa, chubby legs swinging back and forth. The room’s lit only by a television. It casts static filled shadows that flicker and die in random bursts, like silent gunfire, blood-slicked fingers pulling the trigger over and over and over without quite knowing why. The volume’s turned down so low all Dean can hear is a faint buzz. 

He stands in the doorway for a moment, or maybe longer, and watches Sam watching make-believe people who see nothing at all. 

“Hey,” he says, finally, pushing away from the wall and dropping down next his brother, bouncing slightly. Springs squeak of protest. “Change the channel. This is boring.”

Sam frowns. “No. I was here first.”

“Yeah, but I’m older, so you have to do what I tell you.”

“Do not.”

“Seriously, dude. It’s, like, a law or something.” Dean shrugs, and looks back at the television. “They spent a whole, stupid class explaining it at school. You must have been out sick that day.” 

He peers at Sam from the corner of one eye. 

The kid’s face is scrunched up like a paper bag, worry imprinted on every crease. 

Dean’s lips twitch and he bites down on the inside of his cheek. It won’t take Sam long to realise he’s being conned, because the kid’s smart – so _fucking_ smart, and it always makes Dean want to punch him and pull him close, both at the same time - but it’s fun while it lasts. 

He starts a silent countdown: three, two, one, and…

“Jerk,” Sam exclaims, suddenly, punching him on the shoulder.

Dean grins and retaliates by shoving a cushion into Sam’s face.

“Ow! Quit it, Dean.”

“Quit it, Dean,” he echoes, voice pitched high. Sam just glares, eyes narrowed to malevolent slits, and then ignores him.

The house creaks, settling around of them, and the silent television continues to play.

“How much longer do we have to stay here?” Sam asks, eventually. 

Dean ruffles Sam’s hair. Well, what’s left of it, after John dragged Sam into the bathroom last week with cheap pair of clippers in hand. It prickles softly against his hand. “Not long. Dad’ll be finished soon.”

Sam huffs and shuffles down to the far end of the sofa, out of Dean’s reach. “You always say that. You’re such a liar.” He pauses for moment, before adding, “A big fat liar who can’t spell,” as though it’s the worst insult in the world.

For Sam, it probably is. 

So what if Dean’s handwriting is made up of ugly, crooked letters that sometimes come out in the wrong order. They make sense to him. It’s good enough for taking down messages and writing directions, all of the stuff that’s important.

“Whatever,” Dean says, and smirks, because that’s what he does. He’s awesome like Batman, even when the walls are closing in and the other kids are laughing and a part of him just wants to run away and hide. “Stay here and wait for Dad. I’m gonna take a look upstairs.” 

Then he gets up and walks out of the room without looking back, not even when Sam hisses his name. 

It’s fine. 

His father wouldn’t have brought Sam along unless it was safe.

::::

When Dean’s twenty-two and Sam four years younger, he’ll stand silent and watch as his world’s set on fire for the second time. “I don’t want this life,” Sam will shriek, and John will reply, “Well, get out then,” his face twisting into a dead smile.

Dean will think that he’s never seen his brother look so angry, that he’s never seen his father look so scared. Or perhaps it’ll be the other way around. It’s hard to tell. 

He’ll sort through the all words that mean 'stay' but discard them, knowing he’d probably just pick the wrong one anyway. At the end he’ll be left in the same place he started, only a little more tired and tattered; a second hand book that keeps finding itself returned to the discount bin outside on the footpath.

Sam will be seventy-five dollars richer when he leaves in the night and there’ll be a small medical kit filled with the best pieces of Dean tucked into the side pocket of his bag. Sam won’t discover it until he’s two days, a thousand miles, and an entire world away. He won’t understand what it means when he does because Dean never told him and by then it’s too late.

Dean will spend the next six moths hunting things, saving people, and re-stocking his collection with medication that once belonged to the people he doesn’t. He’ll tell himself that it’s no different than applying for credit cards until the cheque for his pro-ball career finally arrives in the mail; that it’s just common sense, nothing more.

Sure. 

Absolutely. 

But see, here’s another thing: Sam was right. Dean Winchester’s also a bit of a liar.

::::

Dean finds himself climbing a sharply angled flight of stairs.

Shadows pool above him on the second floor, greedy mouths kept in check only by the light left behind. An endless carpet runner pattered with intertwined fish - or perhaps they’re supposed to be take-away coffee cups - deadens the sound of his footsteps. He leaps over the final two stairs on a whim and arrives with an exhaled thump on the small landing. Looking around, Dean feels the same sparking thrill that marks his father’s return from a hunt, excitement suffocating the cries of a fragile dread he refuses to acknowledge in case it becomes real; his very own, salt-stained monster lurking under the bed. 

A narrow corridor stretches away into another dimension, building blocks formed out of black pitch and silence. His hand hesitates for a moment, resting against one hip, over the comforting weight of a pocketknife. The flashlight Dean should have brought with him is sitting on the couch next to Sam, watching television. 

It’s cooler up here, as if a window’s been left open, fresh air seeping in to wage a losing battle with the must. A chill so faint that it might be imagined settles against Dean’s skin, dragging invisible fingers along the back of his neck and across his shoulders. His face feels tight and vaguely itchy beneath a film of drying sweat.

He takes a few steps forward and pauses, cautiously reaching out a hand into the darkness. His knuckles brush against the smooth, painted wall. A voice in his head says he ought to go back, repeating its message until the words are reduced to a stream of white noise, useless and easily pushed to one side.

Besides, he’s not some baby who needs looking after. 

Decision made, he takes a deep breath and starts walking again, feeling his way further into the house. As his eyes adjust, Dean realises that the hallway is lined with doors, all of them closed except for one further down on the left. He moves towards it and braces one shoulder against the frame, leaning carefully inside. He can just about make out a large bed covered with crumpled sheets and a quilt that’s been flung to one side. Ghosts made of bathrobes are slumped over the back of a chair in the corner. A pillow lies abandoned on the floor. 

Dean thinks about the people who used to sleep here and the two bodies lying in the kitchen downstairs. About waking up in the morning with warm body of his brother scrunched up beside him, pulling on second hand clothes every morning, and the new jacket Sam will need before winter. Then he reaches over, wraps his fingers around the handle, and steps back out into the hall. 

The door closes with a soft click.

::::

Collecting is a philosophical expression of ego, an attempt to re-order the world in a way that makes sense. Where the microcosm of self and strangeness of the universe intersect lurks an insecure desire. It’s about finding comfort in order and the need to possess.

Have you ever wondered why so many demons hang out at crossroads? 

Soul collection. 

It’s not something demons acknowledge, either to themselves or each other, that last, gasping reminder of what it means to be human. They record names and dates in painstaking detail and lock contracts away with metaphysical keys. Souls are bought and sold in a vicious cycle of want, where each price paid leaves the demon both more powerful and a little more lost, the need to keep its human past present an ever-burning itch under dead skin.

And demons being demons, they can’t help but scratch. 

So, it all starts again, around and around, a carousel of horrific wonder spinning to a soundtrack of screams.

Dean was no different; it’s just that his collection started with the medical marvels people keep hidden behind a mirror, over the bathroom basin. He only switched to souls after breaking, when he climbed off the rack. In truth, Dean was never allowed to keep any souls of his own, but he took care of Alistair’s and sometimes he’d pretend they were his.

::::

The cut on his thumb is a bright sting in the dark.

Dean can hear himself breathing. 

He could have been walking for seconds or days, although the backlit numbers on his watch say it’s closer to minutes. Despite his best efforts Dean’s thoughts start to drift, shuffling sideways in an awkward one-step, two-step, three-step, four, colliding with things yet to happen. Where will they go next, when they leave this house that’s not theirs? Maybe it’ll be a city. He tries to picture it, but can’t. Cheap weatherboard houses and scrubby fields yellowed by the sun stubbornly insert themselves between grease stained take-away containers and stretches of concrete.

He turns a corner, fingers tracing the wall. When, a few seconds later, they stumble over a light switch it all feels strangely familiar, as if he’s the mirror-trapped reflection of a Dean who’s already been here and done this before. He takes half a step forward and freezes at the sound of a high-pitched whine, teeth gnawing against glass bones.

He flattens himself against the wall, pulse stuttering, and waits. The noise comes again but softer now, discordant and jangling. Goosebumps rise on his skin. 

Dean knows he should leave, has memorised the rules more thoroughly than any multiplication table. The voice in his head is back and stuck on replay, loud and insistent, only this time it sounds a lot more like his Dad: _You know the drill. You see something? You don’t go after it. No playing the hero, Dean. This is real, not one of your comic book adventures. You get your brother and come find me._

Sam. Safe. Escape. Find Dad.

It’s simple enough, or would be if only he hadn’t disobeyed an unspoken order by climbing the stairs in the first place.

What should he do? Choices batter against him in a suicidal rush. Behind the door may lurk a monster, only waiting to pounce, but down below are the sharp, tearing teeth of disappointment and anger. It’s a stillborn thought that trails away into silence and finishes itself, slurred logic curling around to answer its own question. 

It’s simple enough. Right now, in this moment, Dean’s where he should be. All the things he’ll become are circling around him, possibilities rubbing gnarled hands together and stretching thin lips into sly, approximated grins as their eyes meet in the dark, over the top of his head. 

Excitement curdled with fear pulls him forward. Bracing himself, Dean takes a shallow breath and hits the switch.

His eyes close a second too slowly against an explosion light.

::::

It’s too hot to sleep.

At least, that’s one of the stories Dean will tell himself every night, even when hope is nothing more than a fucked-up prayer on a funeral pyre, floating away like so much invisible ash. Another is that things will be better tomorrow and that he’ll find a way out. They’re nursery rhymes for the desperate and Dean knows them by heart, has done since childhood.

He won’t let himself think about Sam, convinced that, if he does, the memories will be stolen away by the dark and become one of the lost things Purgatory hoards in its shadows. Instead, he’ll force himself to forget even as Sam-shaped ghosts wail in protest and continue to haunt his subconscious. 

On this night Dean will be sitting on the ground, back pressed against the trunk of a tree whose bark is shedding in diseased strips. His knees will be curled towards his chest. It won’t be any different to the nights that went before or follow after. Well, not until Benny turns up, like a bad, shiny penny, but it’ll be another few months before that happens. 

For the moment Dean will still be alone. 

Actually, do you want to know a secret? Dean will be alone even then.

Sweaty hands will rub up and down the length of his mud-stained jeans in short, jittery strokes that make a mockery of comfort, before reaching into one pocket and pulling out a small, dark green capsule that looks black in the night. He’ll roll it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing away specks of lint, until its surface turns soft and tacky. Then he’ll place it against his tongue, tip his head back, and swallow. 

Dean won’t know what he’s taken, not really, only that it’s the last survivor from a bottle he stole about a year ago, from a man called Michael Skellig. 

Nice guy, you know? 

Well, from what his family said he’d had potential, anyway, back before the whole possession thing.

::::

Dean takes a step back, hand wiping away involuntary tears, and squints through a veil of damp eyelashes.

“Shit,” he curses, under his breath.

The scene resolves itself into a small, empty bathroom. His gaze flicks from the toilet to the shower curtain to the towel rack, automatically cataloguing a set of Venetian blinds hanging over a half-opened window, bent metal ends scraping against the wall as a breeze moves through the room.

The adrenaline he’d had felt only moments before seeps away, like rain through leave-clogged gutters. Dean shakes his head, feeling oddly lost and empty without it. Forcing his shoulders to relax – nothing happened, everything’s fine - he steps into the room and heads towards the basin. A hairline crack threads its way through the off-white porcelain, disappearing into rust stains that have gathered around the metal plughole at the bottom. He twists the tap, waiting until the water runs clear, and then gulps down mouthfuls of tepid water from between cupped hands. 

When Dean looks up, the eyes that meet his in the cabinet mirror are kind of glassy and lined with red. The cabinet lets loose a faint squeal when he pulls it open, hinges protesting against the movement. He leans forward, lifting onto the tips of his toes, hands clenched around the rim of the basin, and peers inside. 

The narrow, dusty, shelves are empty except for a plastic container. There’s no particular reason for it to be there, only it is. 

He lifts it out.

It’s light and about the size of a lock-picking kit, one of those fancy ones he keeps bugging John about. Someone’s written “Phil’s Pills” across the top in black marker. The slanted, spiky letters stand out, like a challenge or a warning, against a bright yellow background. 

Dean inspects each side of the box, turning it this way and that, listening to the rattle inside, and then pops open the lid. Tablets of different colours and sizes sit inside square shaped compartments, each labelled by the days of the week; a small defiance against the threatened promise of sickness and death. Monday is filled with a striking combination of pale blue and red capsules, while the ones for Thursday are mostly green. 

And suddenly, without understanding why, Dean _wants_.

He snaps the box close and shoves it into the waistband of his jeans, against the small of his back. Plastic corners rub against his skin as he walks out of the room and turns off the light, goes back downstairs to check on Sam. 

John always said it’s not stealing if no one notices it’s missing, not if you need it more. It’s a shame Mary died before reading him Alice In Wonderland.

::::

Sam said, “I saw a diner about a mile back. You hungry?”

“Not really.” Dean shrugged and kept his eyes fixed on the television. He leaned back against the headboard and plucked the remote from the quilt, drifting from channel to channel. 

… _it’s currently eighty degrees, but humidity levels will begin to_ \- click - _joining me on the show is Reverend Brown, president of the_ \- click - _up next, when animals_ \- click - _reports say new tax cuts will be announced for those affected by_ …

“Dean.”

“What, Sam? If you wanna go out, then go out.”

Sam sighed. “Fine,” he said, tightly, and grabbed the car keys off the table. Windows rattled in their frames when the door slammed closed.

The air inside the motel room was murky, touched with fever, scented with the smell of dust and stale sweat. Dean flicked the television off and closed his eyes, swallowing mouthfuls of air, and let himself sink into memories of Purgatory. His pulse gradually slowed to a slow, steady, thrum. He knew Sam’s frustration over his refusal to turn on the air-conditioner would boil over soon, scalding them both, but he didn’t know what to say. Each time he tried his throat would close up, words scraping roughly against the inside of his chest.

Dean blinked and rubbed his face, feeling bruised and hollow. 

He slid off the bed, grabbing his duffle from the floor, and moved towards the tiny kitchen. The worn ends of his jeans pooled around bare feet. A bottle of whisky sat on the scratched counter. He unscrewed the lid, hand loose and relaxed, and took several long swallows, exhaling sharply at the familiar burn. When he opened the duffle and pulled out a plastic bag the crackle sounded loud against the silence.

He lined them up, one by one. 

White plastic bottles and anonymous blister packs, orange containers with childproofed lids, imprinted with names that once belonged to someone else. There weren’t as many as before, and it wasn’t the quite the same, not really, but looking at them Dean still felt strangely content. 

He tipped their contents out onto the counter. 

Without pausing to think, Dean swept the pills into his hand and choked them down with a chaser of whisky. He repeated the action until none were left, and his collection was gone. Dean stood, hip pressed against the cabinets, and stared blankly out of the fingerprint-stained window above the sink. Two kids were playing in the parking lot, invisible guns blazing as they leapt out from behind cars and threadbare shrubs, ambushing each other in turn. 

When the pills tried to come back up Dean took another hard pull of liquor to prevent himself from retching. The bottle slipped away, out of numb, trembling fingers, bouncing slightly against the lino. It should have smashed, Dean thought, suddenly wanting to laugh. It should have smashed. He pressed a fist against one eye and stumbled out of the kitchen; kept moving until his knees collided with the bed, pitching him forward. 

The patterned walls of the motel room were a retreating blur, bugs squirming beneath the skin of faded, paper horses as small flowers exploded around them, red and sullen, like bullet-wounds. Dean squeezed his eyes closed and curled into a ball, only to lurch forward a few seconds later and vomit strings of frothy bile onto worn carpet. He had time to spit once, to try and rid his mouth of the taste, before the world turned black.

His darkness was interrupted by the sound of someone chanting, repeating jumbled words that didn’t make any sense. Maybe later he’d ask Bobby to look up a translation, but right now he just wished the voice would stop and let him sleep.

“Don’t you fucking do this. Don’t you do this. Oh, God. Open your eyes, Dean. Jesus fuck!”

His eyes flickered open and tried to focus. He was still lying on the bed, only now it was shaking, or maybe it was him, and he wondered about Armageddon and earthquakes, cindered fragments of thought that crumbled before he could catch hold of their meaning. 

Sam’s face appeared and then vanished again as the room tilted sideways. He was distantly aware of being yanked from the bed and dragged across the floor, past the empty screen of the television and walls of dying horses. Time moved through him in jagged pieces, fast and slow, now and before. Never and always and wrong. Dean gasped and felt a sudden spike of panic, convinced he was drowning, when a spray of cold water hit his face, quickly soaking through his shirt and jeans. His hands scrabbled uselessly against the tiles of the shower floor.

Arms were wrapped around him, rocking him from side-to-side in sharp, broken movements more desperate than gentle. The sound of someone crying was drowned out by the rain. 

“I’ll never forgive you. If you die now I’ll never forgive you.”

Dean shuddered and mouthed the word, “Sorry,” against Sam’s chest. Cold, wet, cotton dragged against his lips. The saddest thing was that he only half meant it, because as bad as this was? It was also kind of perfect.

::::

So, that’s how it goes. In the end is where you’ll find the beginning: when he was ten, Dean Winchester started to collect other people’s medication. 


End file.
